Infant seats have been used in the past for the purpose of transporting and/or maintaining infants in sitting positions or lying on their backs. For example, see the disclosures found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,320,949, 3,747,759, 3,834,759, 3,949,435, 3,974,827, 3,992,056.
Infants who are born with the condition of spina bifida with the associated meningocele or menimgomyelocele are not able to tolerate pressure on these areas, and are therefore restricted in respect to positions of comfort. Generally, these infants must be cared for while lying on their sides or stomachs. These positions do not generally avail themselves to transportation or care of the infant in a regular infant seat.
There is a real need for a device which would enable the infant to maintain a sitting position or a supine position without pressure to the area of the meningocele/meningomyelocele. Spina Bifida occurs in three out of every one thousand babies born in the U.S. Eleven thousand children are born with this defect annually, making it the second largest major birth defect in the country.